A little long, but a good story.
For years our old next-door neighbors, Thurman and Diane Taylor, and us were planning on a trip to the Black Hills. They moved to Indianapolis, but we would meet somewhere to vacation together. This was the year for Deadwood. We met them at a nice campground in Salem SD Thursday night. After supper we sat around the campfire and talked till midnight. Friday morning we left for the 400-mile trip to Deadwood. First stop was Mitchell and the Corn Palace.
After taking all the tourist pictures, we filled both motorhomes with gas. Now I have deep respect for Corn Farmers, and I certainly believe in clean air, but don’t ever put ethanol in an older vehicle when it’s hot out. Ethanol boils at a much lower temperature than gas. As we were pulling out of Mitchell on I90 Thurman radioed me that he couldn’t go over 55 MPH. I slowed down, and we kept on turckin. Everything was fine till we crossed the Missouri River. Pulling the grade in 100-degree heat was too much for my rig. I started cutting out. We limped from one peek to the next, and finally pulled off, and tried to wash out the radiator so it would cool better. I thought we had it solved then at Vivian, in the middle of nowhere, it gave up. We sat at Vivian SD for eight hours in 118-degree heat until almost 9 o’clock. With the temperature down to 95 we thought we could make it. The locals just laughed and said “oh ya don’t ever run Ethanol in the summerâ€. They also said to add a gallon of Diesel fuel to the gas, so we filled both rigs with real gas, and I added a gallon of Diesel, and off we went.
We pulled into Deadwood about 12:30 AM. Our reservations had been canceled at the Deadwood KOA because we didn’t know when we would get there, and if we didn’t cancel we would get charged. We ended up in the Public lot that said “NO OVERNIGHT CAMPING†after explaining our woes to the local officer. We took a tour of Main Street and had a “Midnight Snackâ€, went back to our Motorhomes and slept till nine. We couldn’t get to our campsites until 11 o’clock, so we did some shopping and lost a couple bucks in the “Bandits†before going to the KOA.
After getting hooked up, and the air-conditioning turned on, we set out for Mt. Rushmore. Thurman and Diane towed their car with them so we had a way to get around. We saw the rock-group, and Custer State Park, and then headed for home.
As we got close to Deadwood there was a roadblock set up. The Sheriff asked where we were going? “Dead wood†we said, “no you’re not†was the reply. There was a major forest-fire within feet of Deadwood. Everyone had been evacuated. He suggested we go to Rapid City and find a Motel. There wasn’t a motel room within a hundred miles of Rapid City. We had found a radio station from the Deadwood/Lead area that had all the details of the fire. They kept saying to go to the evacuation center at the Young Center at the Black Hills State Collage in Spearfish, so that’s what we did. The Red Cross had a Doctor there that wrote some prescriptions for Diane (all her medication was in their motorhome.) The Salvation Army had brought in some pizza and Burger King. We had some supper, got a couple cots, and settled in for the night. By morning the National Guard had taken control of the Disaster Relief Center, and “Chow†was served in the cafeteria. It was very good and more than we could eat. I tried to find out from the Guard if our campsite was safe. After calling the Sheriff’s office they told us it was OK, and we could get within two blocks of it. If we were there they might let us in to get our motorhomes and get out of town. When we got to the roadblock the Highway patrol was there. We told him of our plight, and asked if we could get in. He told us to go just to the KOA and no further. We did.
The trip home was great, even in 90-degree heat. The old motorhome ran great. I think it was afraid we would take it back there.
